(RFE/RL) When Ukrainians began toppling statues of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin at the height of the Euromaidan revolution, it seemed almost retro. As if we had gone back in time to 1991. And in some ways we had.
Because to many of its supporters, last year's Ukrainian uprising represented reviving the dashed hopes and promise of that heady time. Hopes for a truly independent Ukraine that had broken from its Soviet past — and was free from Russian domination in its present.
But as Ukraine's pro-Western rulers are now learning, putting these hopes into practice is a lot trickier than knocking down a monument.
On the latest Power Vertical Podcast, we look at a series of anticommunist laws recently passed by the Ukrainian parliament and the controversythey have generated.
Joining me are Natalia Churikova, senior editor of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service and host of the program European Connect; Taras Kuzio, a senior research associate for the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta; and Lucan Way of the Center for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto.
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